Early One Morning
by Jr. Marauder
Summary: Sometime during the First War, Narcissa is getting used to Lucius's missions, but they seem to be taking longer and longer. Lucissa.


center┘Early One Morning┘/center

Narcissa had a daily routine. She usually woke at seven to Dobby▓s tea tray and Lucius▓s bleary blinking, showered, dressed, and ate. She ordered the house elves around a bit, prodded Lucius to get him up, then apparated to Mungos for work. When she got home she answered various letters, mainly from her parents or her sister, then if Lucius still hadn▒t reemerged from his office, she dealt with all the solicitors letters as well.

She rapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. The ornate grandfather clock across the room blared the time at her so indifferently that she would have Reductor-ed it if she▓d had her wand handy. It was almost seven, and it didn▓t seem that today would be in keeping with the routine. She shifted in her seat, pulled her blanked more tightly around her, and threw the wizards genealogy book across the room, watching it join a wireless and two novels in the growing pile of discarded items near her wardrobe. The book was supposed to be a distraction, but the fact that the word ⌠Lucius■ came up almost as frequently as the word ⌠died■ wasn▓t helping alleviate her anxiety.

She▓d been going through this roughly biweekly mental agony more than a year now, and every time Lucius seemed to arrive back in later and more damaged than before. There was always a tremendous amount of extra ⌠work■ for her to do at Mungos, fixing the medical records to prevent tricky questions about the chunk missing out of Yaxley▓s side or Rodolphus▓s mysterious kind of spell damage. Seeing pineapples flying around your house wasn▓t nearly as bad as it could be, but self preservation kept her from dwelling on the possibilities. Instead, she methodically calculated time and distance travelled, over and over, every time hoping to find a mistake in her math that wasn▒t there.

He left at nine the night before. An hour to waste, three hours, another three hours for God-Knows-What, some more time┘4 o▓clock. Where did three hours go? Or was it only two? One, four, eight┘And so she continued, changing her estimates, adding, redoing, even throwing in a bit of subtraction. At seven twenty-three, when she was almost ready to go floo call Bellatrix, her bedroom door was flung open. A dark cloaked figure threw itself down on the grey embroidered duvet, convulsing violently as its right leg hit the carved bedpost.

⌠Lucius!■ Narcissa jumped up and ran over to him.

⌠Sorry, I was--I couldn▓t tell you--but--the damn leg, god damned aurors--■

As she kissed him lightly on the forehead, she decided that he▓d probably rather she not notice how pale his face looked or the way his brow crinkled in pain. ⌠I▓ve just worried about you, honestly. What▓ve you been doing out there?■

He looked at her, ashamed by his silence. 

⌠Yes, here, I▓ll have a look,■ Narcissa said in her well-rehearsed Mungos nurse voice. She put a hand to his cheek quickly, forgiving him for the lack of information, before she severed his pant leg at the side seam, beginning at the ankle. She pressed her lips together as she slowly drew her wand upward, expecting the next torn fabric scrap to reveal some bloody wound. She was shocked to see nothing but a fine, greenish tinged scar that encircled his leg three times, from mid-calf to above the knee. ⌠Do you remember how it happened?■

⌠There were a bunch of vines attacking me, some auror▓s hex, I don▓t know whose. Thank God for your job, I▓d have a hell of a time telling the healers I▓d gotten this playing Quidditch.■

Narcissa frowned. ⌠It▓ll be fine. Just let me.■

Narcissa took a tall glass bottle of purple antiseptic potion from the tray Dobby had produced and rinsed his leg liberally with it, added a pale, minty smelling salve, and finished with gauze to prevent it from smearing on the sheets. ⌠Better?■

⌠Much.■

⌠Good. Lucius, dear, you really should be more careful out there, I can▓t imagine what┘■ she trailed off.

⌠Imagine what iwhat/i? Do you think I▓m having fun being attacked by those things?■ He wasn▓t exactly angry, more exhausted and confused than anything.

The helplessly resigned sight that followed troubled Narcissa. She was used to her Lucius, a pillar of strength and control, but every day she read the papers or saw her sister and her friends, she was becoming more and more sensible to that fact that very few people had any control anymore.

⌠Nothing. I don▓t even know what I▓m saying anymore.■ But she did. And he did too.

Nothing more was spoken of it. With her help, Lucius got his cloak off and they settled into bed together. Leaves framed his muddy face, and she looked almost as worn down as he did, in a wrinkled satin dressing gown and an ivory slip that was missing a half band of lace at the neck. Still, when he pulled her up to his good side and laced his fingers with hers, both of them were as enthralled by each other as they were when Narcissa was the frosty but beautiful pureblood witch and Lucius was the handsome heir to the Malfoy▓s banking fortune.

⌠I▓m just glad you▓re alive,■ Narcissa breathed.

Finding an answer was obviously a struggle for Lucius. He and she both knew that the simplicity of Narcissa▓s words wasn▓t the least bit melodramatic. Much as they both tried to ignore it, Narcissa had approached an essential topic--that Lucius▒s involvement could easily get them both killed.

⌠I▓m alive.■

Only then did Narcissa reach for him, as if she▓d needed his assurance that he was not indeed some figment of her stricken fantasies. She began by pulling the leaves and burrs out of his hair, then combing through it with her fingers. As she lovingly traced the shape of his head and shoulders, his brittle posture slackened.

⌠Goodnight, love.■

⌠Its eight in the morning.■

⌠Goodnight, love.■ 


End file.
